From Cameron''s Deputy Chief of Staff to Deputy Prime Minister in nine years, defenestrator of Boris Johnson in June 2022, knight bachelor in Sunak''s 2024 dissolution honours. The career arc is a textbook one for the smooth professional Conservative of the 2010s.

Born 1978; Trinity Hall Cambridge law; Conservative Research Department from 2004; brief stint at Hill & Knowlton; back as a SpAd in 2009. Deputy Chief of Staff to David Cameron at Number 10 from 2010 to 2015. CBE in the 2015 dissolution honours for political service. Elected for Hertsmere in May 2015 succeeding James Clappison with an 18,461 majority and a 59.3% share. The July 2024 result was not a fall from the cliff so much as a steep drop: 7,992 over Labour on a 44.7% share, with Reform third on 13.7%, the majority cut by two thirds and the vote share by eighteen points.

Junior Cabinet Office minister from January 2018, Paymaster General and Cabinet Office Minister from July 2019, Privy Counsellor from the same month. Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport from 13 February 2020 to September 2021. The £1.57bn Covid Culture Recovery Fund announced in July 2020 is the credit. Most of the rest of his DCMS year and a half was the culture war. The 22 September 2020 letter to the national museums, the National Trust and Historic England, telling them government policy was not to remove statues or objects and implying public funding could follow the line, was the start of "retain and explain". He publicly criticised the Trust''s report linking properties to slavery and empire. He asked Netflix to add a fictional drama disclaimer to The Crown, and Netflix did. He produced the first draft of the Online Safety Bill in May 2021 and passed the brief to Nadine Dorries; the legal but harmful row that followed unfolded after he had left the department.

Co Chairman of the Conservative Party with Ben Elliot from September 2021 to June 2022. Resigned on 24 June 2022 after the Tiverton and Wakefield double by election losses, the first Cabinet rank departure in the chain that ended with Johnson''s resignation eight days later. His letter said "somebody must take responsibility".

Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster under Sunak from October 2022. Cabinet Office Secretary from February 2023. Deputy Prime Minister from 21 April 2023 to 5 July 2024, replacing Dominic Raab after the Adam Tolley KC bullying findings. The March 2024 Commons statement attributing cyber attacks on the Electoral Commission and parliamentarians to a Chinese state affiliated actor, with sanctions on two individuals and a front company, was the highest profile single moment. He did not run for leader after the 2024 defeat; served as Shadow Deputy PM in Sunak''s caretaker team until Badenoch''s election on 5 November 2024 and then returned to the backbenches.

KCB in the July 2024 dissolution honours for political and public service. Voted Remain in 2016, voted Aye on the Rwanda Bill at all stages as Deputy PM, voted No on the Leadbeater assisted dying bill at second reading citing concerns about "excessive judicial activism". Outside earnings since: Strategy Adviser to the hedge fund Caxton Associates from November 2024, £60,000 for six months from the art services firm Heni, and an advisory role with Francisco Partners from June 2025. All declared, all ACoBA cleared.

A career put together piece by piece in CCHQ and Number 10, capable on the Cabinet machinery, but the DCMS year and a half on statues and Netflix and the Trust will be remembered longer than anything he did at the Cabinet Office.